This is important! The EFF’s annual report card is out on how tech companies respond to government requests for your private data. Some companies take a firm position against government spying while others are basically government patsies. Where do the services you use stand?

The report card rates 24 companies on five different questions. These are explained in detail over at the EFF portal for the report.

Do they follow industry-accepted best practices?

Do they tell users about government data requests?

Do they publicly disclose data retention policies?

Do they disclose how many times the government comes for data and how often they comply?

Do they oppose backdoors into their data?

Nine companies admirably received perfect marks (Adobe, Apple, CREDO, Dropbox, Sonic, Wickr, Wikimedia, Wordpress.com, and Yahoo), while three companies really need to get their act together (AT&T, Verizon, and WhatsApp).

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Every year, the EFF explores a common public position that companies are taking, and this year it was backdoors. Do these companies publicly oppose giving the government access to their data via secret backdoors? It turns out that most do. Only AT&T, Verizon, and Reddit don’t. Good!